stefanie says

(I wrote this on the plane as it descended into Singapore, willing the cabin lights to stay switched off, and thankful that the stranger next to me was still asleep.)

Today is the first time I’m flying into Singapore without my set of keys into my home of twenty years. But the keys and locks have been changed, and it isn’t my home anymore.

I have been hesitating in saying that I’m going “back” to Singapore, because it is an indication that I have been away from it this whole time. Am I back? Am I home? Or am I now a mere visitor, on a holiday? It is confusing to shuttle between two places that are both your homes, yet not have a proper claim in either place. I don’t know whether to go back there, to my old house - to stand outside, just to see what it looks like now, to see what’s changed in the six months since it’s been passed to the new owner. I contemplate maybe ringing the doorbell and asking to be let in. I mull over what I might say to the new owner. I think - no, I know - that the experience will inevitably result in tears.

Even now, it’s hard to think about. I know it’s a mere physical location, something I shouldn’t be so attached to it in the grand scheme of things, but sometimes I am caught up with thoughts of it. I wonder what’s happened to my old bedroom, and whether the boy or girl in the new family chose it as theirs. I hope the girl did. I wonder whether she painted over my mustard and sunshine walls, and if she did, what colour. I wonder whether she thinks about how many layers of paint are beneath that. I wonder how she’s arranged the furniture, if she’s pushed her bed against the wall with the windows or the door or if it’s just in the middle of the room. I hope she wakes up facing the windows - it’s a magnificent feeling in the morning. I wonder whether she’s used to climbing all the steps in the house (there are 46 in total, I think, but even now I forget, and the thought of forgetting terrifies me). It gets dark in some corners of the staircases even at midday, and I hope she hasn’t tripped over anything. I wonder what they’ve done to the kitchen. I know new house owners tend to go crazy with renovations, but we only just spruced up the kitchen a few years ago. I hope they kept it the way it is. I hope they sit out in the backyard during thunderstorms and aren’t annoyed by the pattering of raindrops on the awning above, and that they don’t panic about the amount of water that’s collecting above. It’ll be fine, I want to tell them. Trust in the drainage system.

Forgetting little details about it is scary, but a relief at the same time. Maybe it’s better if I do. But before it goes completely - I have the strange need to tell people about it. Especially the new people I’ve met in the time since I’ve been away, people who have never seen or been inside it. It feels like this huge part of me that they don’t know about. It feels strange that they’ll never really know or see it fully, as if they will never know or see me fully. I want to go over every detail about it with them, to have that empty part of me filled again by remembering. So I am telling you about it now, so that I can remember.